My mother’s flower garden sat at the top of her ranch in
upper Santa Monica. The air was always clean and crisp there, possibly because
of the ocean breeze wafting in every evening. My mother passed away in 1975,
and we sold her home to some investors, but the memories are as clear as they
ever were.
She had about a dozen orchids that would bloom beautifully late
spring for about a week then mock us the rest of the year with their ugly brownish
bulbs. I had always fantasized about tearing them out and replacing them with
something simple and dependable like lilies. Mother didn’t care when they
bloomed, as she would always say, “it’s not the length of time that we see
them, but that we see them at all.” Mother was about as present as the orchids in
our young lives.
When she did make time for her four children, we would spend
most of it in and around this garden of hers. We called it a flower garden, but
it was just our enormous backyard. We had the bright green spring grass that
was barely high enough to cover the ants, but it felt nice on our feet. She
called it her garden because she always imagined herself a Victorian
dilettante, entertaining society while grazing on fresh fruit and old cheese. While
she was alive we complained about her frequent visits to this boyfriend or that
suitor or this function or that commitment, but after she passed we only remembered
our times in the flower garden.
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